Agenda, decisions and minutes

The chairman will make any specific announcements for this meeting and advise of any late items which will be given consideration under agenda item 8 (a) or (b).

Apologies for absence will be taken at this point.

[DETAILS IN THE MINUTES]

Mr A Dignum (Leader of the Council) greeted the members of the public and Chichester District Council (CDC) members and officers and the two press representatives who were present for this special meeting of the Cabinet in order to consider two important aspects of CDC’s current review of the Chichester Local Plan: (a) the Chichester Local Plan Review: Preferred Approach – Consultation (agenda item 5) and (b) the Revised Local Development Scheme 2018-2021 (agenda item 6), both of which would be the subject of recommendations to the forthcoming Council meeting on Tuesday 20 November 2018.

Mr Dignum summarised the emergency evacuation procedure.

There was an apology for absence from Mr R Barrow (Cabinet Member for Residents Services). All other members of the Cabinet were present.

There were no late items for consideration.

Mr Dignum had no specific announcements to make.

[Note Hereinafter in these minutes CDC denotes Chichester District Council]

[Note Minute paras 607 to 613 below summarise the Cabinet’s discussion of and decision on agenda items 2 to 8 inclusive but for full details of the items considered in public session please refer to the audio recording facility via this link:

http://chichester.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=135&MId=979&Ver=4]

The minutes of the Cabinet’s ordinary meeting on Tuesday 6 November 2018 will, as usual, be presented for approval at the Cabinet’s next ordinary meeting on Tuesday 4 December 2018.

[APPROVAL OF 6 NOVEMBER 2018 MINUTES DEFERRED TO 4 DECEMBER 2018 MEETING]

As stated in the agenda, there were no minutes to consider at this meeting.

The minutes of the Cabinet’s ordinary meeting on Tuesday 6 November 2018 (together with the minutes of this special meeting) would be presented for approval at the next ordinary meeting on Tuesday 4 December 2018.

Members are requested to make any declarations of disclosable pecuniary, personal and/or prejudicial interests which they might have in respect of matters on the agenda for this meeting.

[NONE]

No declarations of interests were made at this meeting.

In accordance with Chichester District Council’s scheme for public question time and with reference to standing order 6 in part 4 A and section 5.6 in Part 5 of the Chichester District Council Constitution, the Cabinet will receive any questions which have been submitted by members of the public in writing by 12:00 on the previous working day. The total time allocated for public question time is 15 minutes subject to the chairman’s discretion to extend that period.

[FOUR PUBLIC QUESTIONS – DETAILS IN MINUTES]

Four public questions had been submitted for this meeting, details of which appear below.

The text of the questions had been circulated to CDC members, the public and the press immediately prior to the start of this meeting. Mr A Dignum (Leader of the Council) invited each person in turn to come to the designated microphone in order to read out the question before an oral response was provided.

The questions (with the date of submission shown within [ ] at the end of the text), any supplementary questions and the answers given by Mr Dignum or Mrs S Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services) were as follows.

(1) Mr Mike Dicker

‘Please find enclosed a statement and three associated questions for the CDC special Cabinet to be held at 15:00 on 14November 2018.

On 21 September 2018 Councillor Potter at Boxgrove Village Hall announced that there is no point raising the A27 as councillors at CDC had been advised by officers that the RIS 2 money would not be forthcoming. I have been seeking this advice since then under FOI and the matter is currently the basis of a complaint to the Information Commissioner having exhausted CDC internal processes for relying on an exemption that the advice would be published at a later date.  I now have three questions:

1.   Why is CDC promoting a scheme which just 3% of respondents to the 2016 public consultation supported (option 3)? Should CDC not instead be working closely with the public, WSCC and our MP Gillian Keegan to get the RIS 2 funding to take the SYTRA work forward for a preferred mitigated Northern option as voted for by CDC and then propose plans for the local feeder road with sustainable transport options as part of any local planning?

2.   What value does the Cabinet attach to the Peter Brett traffic study when the costs shown are around half those calculated by HE for option 3?

3.   When will I receive the disclosure of my FOI request as you could not then and certainly not now rely on the publication at a future date exemption and have not, as promised, published the advice to councillors or provided it to me?’ 

[Monday 12 November 2018]

(1) Response

Mr Dignum provided the following response.

‘Thank you for your questions.

1.     In answer to your first question, Chichester District Council (CDC), working closely with West Sussex County Council, remains focused on achieving improvements to the A27 Chichester Bypass that will provide long term benefits and also address concerns about matters such as poor air quality and journey reliability. As part of the BABA27 initiative, the concept schemes developed by consultants Systra were reported to a special meeting of the full Council in June 2018 where it was resolved that in promoting a scheme to Highways England for inclusion in RIS2, our preference is for the Mitigated Northern route with the alternative Full Southern route put forward as a reasonable alternative. Highways  ...  view the full minutes text for item 609.

The Cabinet is requested to consider the agenda report and the update sheet and the four appendices to the report in the agenda supplement* and to make the following recommendation to the Council:

(1)  That the Local Plan Review: Preferred Approach document (attached as appendix 2) and the schedule of proposed changes to the policies map (attached as appendix 3) be approved for an eight-week consultation from 13 December 2018 to 7 February 2019.

(2)  That the Director for Planning and the Environment be authorised, following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Planning Services, to make minor amendments to the consultation documents prior to their publication.

*[Note The four appendices in the agenda supplement are not being circulated to Chichester District Council members as they have already received them in the agenda papers for the Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel meeting on Thursday 1 November 2018, which they should bring with them please both to this special meeting of the Cabinet and the ensuing Council meeting on Tuesday 20 November 2018]

RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL

(1)  That the Local Plan Review: Preferred Approach document (attached as appendix 2), as amended in the sixth agenda supplement, and the schedule of proposed changes to the policies map (attached as appendix 3) be approved for an eight-week consultation from 13 December 2018 to 7 February 2019.

(2)  That the Director for Planning and the Environment be authorised, following consultation with the Cabinet Member for Planning Services, to make minor amendments to the consultation documents prior to their publication.

The Cabinet received and considered the agenda report and its four appendices in the main agenda supplement and the updates detailed in the sixth agenda supplement.

This item was presented by Mrs S Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services).

In attendance for this matter were Mr A Frost (Director of Planning and Environment), Mr M Allgrove (Planning Policy Manager) and the following members of the CDC Planning Policy team: Ms H Chivers, Mrs V Dobson, Mrs K Dower, Mrs T Flitcroft, Mr T Guymer and Mrs V Owen.

Mrs Taylor presented the report as follows. CDC currently had an adopted Local Plan but was committed to reviewing it by July 2020 to ensure that the development needs of the Local Plan area were addressed in accordance with national planning policy. The Local Plan Review would be for 2020 to 2035 and would cover the Chichester District area outside the South Downs National Park (SDNP). Work on the evidence base to inform the Local Plan Review had been ongoing for the past two years. Appendix 4 to the report set out the evidence base already published together with future dates of publication. The Local Plan area’s housing need was based on the government’s current proposed methodology and was capped at an increase of 40% of the figure in the existing Chichester Local Plan (CLP), resulting in a housing need figure of 12,350 new dwellings over the plan period ie 609 dwellings plus 41 dwellings per annum to accommodate the unmet housing need of the SDNP within the CLP area, namely a total of 650 dwellings per annum. The Local Plan Review: Preferred Approach (LPRPA) had two parts. Part one set out some of the key planning issues and challenges together with the preferred spatial strategies to meet the needs of the District. It proposed inter alia specific sites for development. A majority of the planned growth would be in the east-west corridor including Chichester city, with more moderate development for the Manhood Peninsular and in the north of the District. In addition, provision for new employment floor-space was proposed equating to over 230,000 m² for the plan period. Part two of the LPRPA comprised development management policies, which provided greater detail with respect to, for example, design, heritage, housing mix/tenure and landscape considerations. If approved by the Cabinet and the Council, the LPRPA would be published for consultation for a period of eight weeks from 13 December 2018 to 7 February 2019. The Revised Local Development Scheme (the next agenda item at this special meeting) set out the timetable for taking the LPRPA through to adoption, which self-evidently was very tight. Failure to proceed to consultation on the LPRPA would be likely to result in the extant CLP becoming out-of-date with its serious consequences. The proposed consultation would afford an opportunity for the community to engage in a positive and constructive way to ensure that the development that took place was planned, and not speculative and unplanned with a lack  ...  view the full minutes text for item 610.

The Cabinet is requested to consider the agenda report and its appendix in the agenda supplement* and to make the following recommendation to the Council:

That the revised Local Development Scheme 2018-2021 be approved.

*[Note The appendix in the agenda supplement is not being circulated to Chichester District Council members as they have already received it in the agenda papers for the Development Plan and Infrastructure Panel meeting on Thursday 1 November 2018, which they should bring with them please both to this special meeting of the Cabinet and the ensuing Council meeting on Tuesday 20 November 2018]

RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL

That the revised Local Development Scheme 2018-2021 be approved.

The Cabinet received and considered the agenda report and its appendix in the agenda supplement.

This item was presented by Mrs S Taylor (Cabinet Member for Planning Services).

In attendance for this matter were Mr A Frost (Director of Planning and Environment), Mr M Allgrove (Planning Policy Manager) and the following members of the CDC Planning Policy team: Ms H Chivers, Mrs V Dobson, Mrs K Dower, Mrs T Flitcroft, Mr T Guymer and Mrs V Owen.

Mrs Taylor presented the report, saying that the Local Development Scheme (LDS) identified and timetabled the planning documents to be prepared by CDC for its plan area over a three-year period, and the version of the LDS appended to the report was for the period 2018 to 2021. She drew attention to the revised timetable for the Local Plan Review. As mentioned in the preceding agenda item, the timetable was now very tight and there was no room for slippage if CDC wished to attain its target date of July 2020. The Local Plan Review would require work to commence on development plan documents (DPD) such as Gypsy and Traveller Sites and the Site Allocation DPD. Dates had not yet been set but it was anticipated that work would start on them shortly. The LDS was constantly kept under review and updated. It was published on the CDC’s website to enable the community and stakeholders to find out about the planning policies for their area and the timetable for the production of the documents.

Mrs E Lintill (Deputy leader of the Council, Cabinet Member for Community Services and one of the two CDC members for the Petworth ward) pointed out with reference to the final bullet point in section 4.1 in the revised LDS document (page 280 in the agenda supplement) that it should be made clear that only a small part of Petworth was in the Chichester Local Plan area.

Mr Allgrove noted the need to clarify that and added that the same applied to Lavant (the penultimate bullet point).

Decision

The Cabinet voted unanimously to make the recommendation set out below.    

RECOMMENDATION TO THE COUNCIL

That the revised Local Development Scheme 2018-2021 be approved.

(a)  Items added to the agenda papers and made available for public inspection

(b)  Items which the chairman has agreed should be taken as matters of urgency by reason of special circumstances to be reported at the meeting

[NONE]

As stated by Mr A Dignum (Leader of the Council) during agenda item 1 (minute 606) there were no late items for consideration at this special meeting.

There are no restricted items for consideration at this meeting.

[NO RESOLUTION REQUIRED TO BE MADE]

There were no exempt agenda items or matters for consideration at this special meeting and so there was no requirement to pass a resolution to exclude the press and public.